A Speaker of the legislature has lost his job because of allegations he favoured his own party for the first time in history, but many others have been threatened.
Liberal Mike Brown, who as Speaker refereed debates, failed to get re-elected mainly because opposition Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats felt he was lenient with his own party when it broke rules and a few Liberals disgruntled for various reasons voted with them.
The allegations about the MPP from Algoma-Manitoulin contained some truth, because the easygoing Brown permitted more heckling and obstructionism than Speakers traditionally do and most of it was by Liberals in sustained attempts to prevent opposition parties being heard rather than by the frustrated opposition.
Almost all Speakers have been accused of favouring their parties. Brown’s predecessor, Alvin Curling, a Liberal and the first black Speaker, left to enough praise it might have been thought he was a candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Politicians tend to be charitable to departing adversaries.
But Curling quit shortly before the legislature was to debate a New Democrat motion that he was biased and incompetent and should resign.
The Conservatives felt the same, calling him a disgrace as Speaker, and their entire caucus once walked out because he refused to allow them to say the government was suppressing a report.
But black community groups complained Curling was being picked on, which was untrue, and an accommodating federal government found him an ambassadorship far away from the sensitive situation.
Gary Carr, an earlier Conservative Speaker, was accused by Conservative premier Ernie Eves of being biased, but on this issue the Speaker clearly was in the right.
Eves unveiled a budget outside the legislature to avoid opposition parties’ questions. Carr accused him of putting his political interests ahead of the institution. But an election was too close to risk punishing this outspoken Speaker.
Conservatives threatened to remove another Conservative Speaker who showed the neutrality Speakers are supposed to have. Chris Stockwell, after being left out of premier Mike Harris’s cabinet, was elected Speaker on a promise to serve all MPPs equally and made rulings his party disliked.
Some felt Stockwell was delaying their legislation to merge Metropolitan Toronto into a single city and warned him privately they were considering proposing a non-confidence motion that would remove him.
Stockwell retorted he would not be pressured, but any attempt by Conservatives to eject him as Speaker would have made them look dictatorial and they never followed up their threat.
Hugh Edighoffer, a Liberal Speaker, upset many because he tried to keep the front of the legislature free of demonstrations. He barred groups including disarmament and environmentalist activists, saying the Liberals had worked hard to provide a dignified atmosphere.
But opponents finally won the day by arguing the front of the legislature should be a `people place’ where the public rather than lobbyists could express its views.
But the Speaker who got in most trouble was Conservative John Turner in the early 1980s. His rulings included permitting a Conservative minister to sneer a Liberal needed to see a psychiatrist, because he was depressed and paranoid, and ejecting the leaders of the two opposition parties, but within minutes changed his mind and allowing them back in.
Turner also broke the rule Speakers should be neutral by making a radio broadcast in his riding supporting government legislation about which the opposition parties had concerns and introducing Conservative ministers at a rally.
The NDP put forward a motion the legislature had lost confidence in Turner and asked him to resign, but the Liberals, who earlier said much the same thing, refused to support it on the grounds Turner had weaknesses, but who should not go down in history as being kicked out of this prestigious job.
This has been a problem when premiers and more recently MPPs chose Speakers – they often have picked the nicest guy and not the smartest.
Eric Dowd is a veteran member of the Queen’s Park press gallery.
